Introduction
Once our three month stay living in the favela of Rocinha concluded, the next stage consisted in the comparison between favelas (informality) and low middle class neighborhoods (in transition to formality), in search of matches that could compare with extrapolated cases to Rocinha. Therefore, between 2011 and 2014 we added new research living in and comparing low middle class neighborhoods in more than 10 cities in the North, Central and South of Brazil. During this period we continued to apply the methodological model of the favelas, designed to interpret and generate dialogue between anthropology and economics.
Therefore, the method is based in part on active observation of meta- linguistic categories - which could support the design of practical communication strategies, either in the world of companies associated with the subject, such as insurance companies and pension funds, as well as in the development of public policies in various areas of the work, pensions, and education economies, among others. During these 4 years we have coexisted with hundreds of people; lived with them, slept in their homes, and participated in their rituals and personal and family celebrations. We have deepened systematically in urban forms of adaptation and creation of micro-economic-household systems in Brazil, and as a result, raised a valuable amount of statistical information as we surveyed and interviewed more than 3,000 people. One of the most important finds for our research was the verification of the existence of a whole formal neighborhood, occupying extensions of informal square kilometers in where in Brazil is colloquially called of "asphalt", or the formal world. The conclusions that can be drawn from this data are many, those related to the household economy and its “composite” condition are what interest us. We want to understand and explain how this economic composition becomes dynamic thanks to the major core that is the Composite Communicational Microcenter, and the onset of the verticality over the horizontality of the urban expansion. In contrast to Rocinha, which is still flanked by easily collapsible forests, in Heliópolis, there is nowhere else to grow. The formal city already enclosed it with an endless concrete wall and forced it to adapt again, growing upwards in the same cluttered way every low income project has.
In Heliópolis, street names originate as an important basis for socio-economic inclusion, which incubates inside to give expression to the need of the residents of having a fixed and formal address, which will help them get employment, a bank account, or legal documents. It also helped that the Government, which considered the place irregular, never took the initiative, but the merit of this data by itself lies in its urban micro-economic basis.
Despite these achievements, the occupation of Heliópolis did not occurred collectively or at once, but gradually and more individually, following a certain hybrid pattern of supply and increased demand. In other words, the increasing demand and limited supply fit into a growing need for working-age migrants, and therefore, likely to "pay for their right". The large number of options for occupation that took place are a sample of how the household economic system ended up becoming independent of any ideology that could co-opt it, although the resident would buy lots from "grileiros", a sort of real estate speculator. Whatever the origin of the resident who, either by public instance or local association, would arrive after a relative already settled in the area provided him with a place to live, would take an empty peripheral area, or would buy or rent a room already built, the resident found an economic system of interactions that ignored formal definitions, to create and follow their own rules.
The issue of proprietary regularization of the land is, from the beginning, a superlative guideline in the political and social movement of the residents of Heliópolis; during the decade of 1970, they would begin to meet under the name of Committee of Residents, in their fight for the legalization and urbanization of the locality. In 1981, the Central of Residents of Heliópolis emerged and the following year, informally organized, the Union of Nuclei, Associations and Societies of Residents of Heliópolis and São João Clímaco (UNAS), just official in 1992.
All in all, 2006 should be considered the year of the fundamental breakthrough in Heliópolis as it is today, where the clearest manifestation of its existence is expressed in an almost unprecedented global development process. Worthy of study due to its character as an example of a possible process of self-management, which takes it from being an informal, precarious and marginal settlement, to want to become an urban ideal identified as a neighborhood, that year the residents of Heliópolis represented by the historical leaders of the UNAS and the municipality of São Paulo, decide to take over a social attribute and renamed the favela as Nova Heliópolis, assigning it almost by decree, but also by basis, the status of 'Educational Neighborhood'. Formally and politically, Heliópolis leaders launched the idea of it being a neighborhood in which priority is given to education, encourage investments in public schools and promote actions of integration among residents, such as the creation of community radio stations, blogs, newspapers, and an important educational epicenter with a great cultural center available to the local residents which is home to one of the most important youth symphony orchestras in Latin America.
Nearly all streets in Heliópolis present some kind of commerce. In general, the business is not recognized due to being located in a non-regularized area, and therefore does not pay taxes. The historian and researcher Ariovaldo Malaquías{1}, tells that there was great growth of small businesses in Heliópolis at the beginning of the 1990s with the decrease of offers for formal work in the city of São Paulo. As it progressed, this type of activity began as an alternative to generate household income, setting up precariously "in a small door", in a shack or even with the offer of products door to door, which often grew enough so that the owner would increase his sales becoming rich within the favela, buying properties and owning a home.
During our field work we surveyed hundreds of small businesses located in different areas of the favela, something that Malaquías had also noticed in terms of a great variety of types of businesses such as "bars and grocery stores, shoe stores, emporiums, butchers, bakeries, pharmacies and an infinity of stores." {2} This author also coincided with us on the existence of a hyper valuation of goods marketed in the locality, being the products sold at prices much higher than those found outside. Therefore, besides the low cost in the maintenance of the business (tax free), there is also an over profit due to speculation. That way there would be a transition in the business as a mean of survival towards a lucrative business, as well as the increase in intensity of the dispute for the internal market.
Lícia Valladares, in her extraordinary book The Invention of the Favela, produces an intractable criticism on the "dogmas" commonly accepted in Brazilian society with regards to the favelas, claiming that these dogmas inserted in the representation that the political class makes of it, repeatedly tries to reduce the diversity of the favela through limited looks seeking to homogenize it.